Author - graham

Bangkok-Ban-Phe-Ko Samet

Taxi

Arose early and took a taxi to Mo Chit from my apartment, which cost 121 Baht

Minivan

Ticket to Ban Phe pier cost 220 baht and takes about 3.5-4 hours, you stop about 2.5 hours into the trip for a quick toilet stop and have a chance to grab a drink and some food if you want to. 

Once you arrive at the pier you have met with hordes of sales reps trying to get you to sign up to there charters.

This can be very confusing but basically, they sort out your boat trip to the island and return journey, as well as your return journey to Bangkok if you so wish (obviously for a small fee which they keep) 

Now as we were only stopping for 1 night, I thought it would be the best option as everything is paid for and we know where we are.

So handed over 1000 baht for two of us.

This includes travel on a speedboat as it was ready and if we wanted to go by ferry, we had to wait another hour before it arrived.

( as we had just had to wait 3 hours for a 2hour wait for a bus)

I decided that Thai times are slightly different from the UK so we went with the quicker option, not the cheaper one. 

Unfortunately, this is where it gets interesting!!!

Speedboat

The first speedboat was not going to where we wanted, which was Sai Kaew Beach (even though when I asked at the counter where they go, I was told they all go to the same place)  

Eventually, we got the next one and instead of getting off at the pier, as the boat driver didn’t think our hotel was on that part of the island, we opted for a wet landing and hit the beach. 

A Short walk in the wrong direction, as I obviously knew better than Google Maps, and another short walk back again and we found the place we were stopping at and could relax.

Your ticket to the beach

Things they don’t tell you.  

When you arrive either on the beach or when you go to the beach, you have to pay a small fee (this is for the upkeep of everything I guess) So Farang’s or Tourists have to pay 200 baht and Thai visitors pay 40 baht.

  TIP OF THE POST

“keep these with you as they check as you enter the beach area and will either turn you away or make you pay again if you do not have your ticket”

The Return

So coming back we found out that we’re not going back via speedboat but in fact, the smaller ferryboat, which meant waiting a while even though we were told to ring them 1 hour before we wanted to go back to the boat would account for us.

We even saw the speedboat driver who seemed as confused as we were regarding why we were going by Ferry.  

The bus ride was much the same and took the same time, however, we arrived in Ekkamal where instead of the taxi we got the BTS.

  The station is opposite the bus depot and quickly arrived at Victory Monument where I then grabbed a minivan to the area where I was staying.

BTS is the train and costs about 44 baht and it was another 30 baht for the minivan so on the whole slightly cheaper than a taxi, and Ekkamal has buses running to Bang Phe every hour whilst Mo Chit doesn’t.

Summary

Leave from Ekkamal rather than anywhere else, unless its the opposite side of Bangkok to where you are staying.

Based upon my own experience, try and refrain from getting sold a package and try and work your way to the buy one ticket to go to the island and then pay for your return when you want to go, back.  

Two reasons for this is that first if you want to stay for longer why pay for a return when you will get to know the island better and can maybe strike a better deal.

I got told various prices when asking different people, so basically I believe that if someone tries to help you and takes you to the place you buy from they get a cut of the cost.

So hence the varying rates- understandable and it’s not a lot but it does get confusing.  

Especially when we found out that going back to Bangkok meant traveling on a different bus, from a different place and being made to wait for a later bus because you are not their customer but part of a package deal.

I was very lucky as I had a friend who speaks Thai with me and even they were confused by it all. There was also a guy on the bus with a Thai girlfriend and they had the same issue.  

So I worry if you don’t speak any Thai, you might end up with a very awkward experience. Some time leaving it to chance seems a better option 🙂

Rough costs bus to and from Bkk approx 200 baht each way, but may get cheaper if you find the right place Ferry cost return 120 baht speedboat one way 250 baht

TIP OF THE POST
 
“Take water with you, but as you are going to be sitting on the minibus for about 2.5 hours before you hit a toilet stop, don’t go mad the few hours before you start out unless you have a very strong bladder, and make sure you wear the seat belt as the drive in a minivan can be an experience, to say the least”

I had been in Singapore for 5 days before I managed to do something I have never ever done before.

I LOST MY MOBILE PHONE

Having gone to Changi Airport to meet my Cousin who had just landed in SG for the F1 Grand Prix race, and excited that we were going to spend the next 8 or so days visiting sites in SG ( his first visit and my 3rd in as many years) Not to mention 3 days at my first Grand Prix race.

I met him after he got through Customs struggling with all his baggage or rather mine, as I was traveling for 12 months I had opted to bring a spare set of everything that could be left in SG with friends because it is cheaper than flying back to the UK right? and even with 30kg plus carry on of 7kg, had run out of baggage allowance. So I persuaded him to bring some of my stuff with him.

Afterall he was only staying for 8 days, right? so he wouldn’t need that much

Anyway, after getting the bus back as far as the local town centre to where we were staying, we hopped into a waiting taxi and arrived at our apartment.
Paying the taxi driver we then preceded to gather our bags from the boot of the cab and go to the apartment. I thought something was wrong as I watched the tail lights of the cab leave us I stood for a minute thinking…

“I think I have left my phone in the cab” I told Richard.
You sure? he said
“No, maybe, not sure”

Great start to my 12-month trip

Well I had, the day before I had snapped the button on my shorts (probably because I was rushing to put them on, not because I had put on any more weight)
So taking a button from the side pocket of my shorts, which I put my phone in, seemed like a sensible thing to do, except that when you sit down anything in your pocket now falls out.

We managed to get hold of the number for the taxi company left a message and waited.
2 days later we rang again, and they said they were still trying to reach the driver, so was expecting the worst by this point.:(
After 5 days we found that the driver had got in touch, had remembered where he dropped us off and arranged to pop by that evening to return the phone.

TIP OF THE POST

If taking cabs, always try to get either the name of the driver and or the number plate, losing a phone is one thing, but imagine leaving your wallet with all your cash and credit cards? Or worse your passport.
A good reason why I love using Grab over here, you do everything online and have a contact for the driver as well as the number plate and a way of contacting the company.

September, 2018

I am not sure if it was because it was not a branded phone, (recently purchasing a dual sim phone and the cheapest turned out to be a Blackview, made in Hong Kong and although not as amazing as an iPhone, Samsung or HTC it was cheap, has a great battery life and looks ok)or whether it just fell down the side of the seat and no one noticed it or because people in Singapore are just too honest, it was not stolen.
Incedently, I am going with the last one, because everyone I meet in Singapore from the taxi drivers to the servers in the hawker centers is so polite and always willing to help, that I can’t possibly believe that someone would steal it.

”So thank you Singapore, Singaporeans and in particular to the driver of the cab for being honest and returning my mobile”

Amazon Kindle (other reading devices available!)

They didn’t become the biggest and the best by chance,.

The good thing about Amazon Kindle is that one device can hold pretty much all you need when travelling and taking up a fraction of the space in your bag.

Rather than, carrying a collection of DVD movies, travel guides, and reading books.

Since I have been away travelling, the time available to spend catching up on reading both factual as well as fiction and a few self-help improvement books thrown in as made me realize how important having a digital reader really is.

I am very much old school when it comes to books.

From the age of 14 I liked nothing better than spending my Saturdays and all of my pocket money trawling through old dusty bookshops in my hometown and looking quizzically at the (usually) old man in charge.

Sat behind a big old antique desk covered in what looked like first edition books from every kind of subject, smoking a pipe and I thought to myself,  “will let me have all 3 I want for the price of 2 of them?”

(No buy 2 get one free in those days)

After about 2 months they got used to me coming in every week or so and started to be less worried about taking my money and even allowed me to sit for a while and read.

Normally this is where the story goes that I came to visit that often that they offered me a job and I helped out, learning more about keeping books, running a business and got to read everything for free.

Alas, when you are a shy 14-year-old,  these things you read in books or see in the movies don’t actually happen in real life, well not to everyone anyway.

So I just kept on visiting and buying and collecting.

I resisted the urge when everything went digital saying that I preferred the smell of a book to the online version.

The feel of a book in your hand rather than a metallic feel of a tablet, not to mention the constant cleaning of the screen due to sticky fingerprints and after all its better for your eyes than staring at a screen all day right?

But everything has its place and as I sit here on a beach in Thailand I can read the news, reply to friends via email, write this post for my blog and then go back to reading any number of books in my gallery.

The plus side?

Without having to carry around an extra bag full of reading materials, so I am glad I invested in one in the end.

So worth the cost, don’t you think?